~ Daily musings from a slightly bent brain.

March Madness

March is one of those months where it seems like there’s a lot going on as far as milestones or memories in my life.

On March 2nd, my youngest granddaughter turned eighteen. EIGHTEEN! All three of those girls are adults now.

On March 6th, my “nephew” Alex turned 23. The next day was his mother’s birthday – she turned 54. We haven’t spoken in about 5 years now. I miss her, a lot, but I recognize now that, while she always liked folks to think she had it all together, she really didn’t. She’s one of those “stealth” toxic people. You are either with her, or you’re against her. And, when the frailties of the human condition afflict you, well, let’s just say she left skid marks. Yes, I played a role too, but I have extended the olive branch on more than one occasion. I have now reached a point where I have no more fucks to give about that situation.

My middle granddaughter, Annie, turned 20 on the eleventh. Gosh, how fast that time flew by. And now, in just one short week, she is due to have her first child as well – possibly another March date to tick off on the calendar. The little guy’s name is going to be Rylan Michel (pronounced Rye-lan Michael). She’s spelling the middle name that way in honor of her mother. Annie and her Mom have done a lot of healing since Michelle moved to Las Vegas. I guess sometimes distance DOES heal.

Yesterday my youngest sibling, Kevin, turned fifty. I haven’t talked to him since my older brother’s wife died back in 2002 and, frankly, that’s another one where I’ve lost the last fuck I can give.

Six years ago today I found out Lisa had been lying to me about her relationship with Wendy. While she had told me in November that she had cut off all contact with her she had, in fact, been carrying on a secret relationship with her over the course of the winter until the point when Wendy left her (newly married) wife, and the wife contacted me to see if Lisa had come to get her. That was the day my life fell apart. I’ve let go and moved on, but that’s not to say that I don’t still think of her sometimes, and I still miss her as well. I’ve never figured out how to “un-love” her, but I do know that I don’t like her very much. I also know that in some ways, my life is now better without her.

On this day in 1966, my mother married my stepfather – almost five months after she bore him a daughter (my half-sister). I used to think they married before Sue was born but in researching documents on ancestry, I learned that, in fact, they married afterward. My guess is that it took that long for him to get his divorce from the woman he was married to while carrying on an affair with my mother.

Today would have been my ex-mother-in-law’s 99th birthday!

Today is also the official first day of spring – and to me, this is the time of rebirth and renewal, not New Year’s Day. With spring, we can put the coldness behind us – and it’s not just the coldness of the snow and temperatures, it’s the coldness in our minds that weather seems to sometimes bring. With me, spring is a sort of spiritual awakening as well as that of the flora in the world. Welcome Spring!

A week from today would have been my father’s 84th birthday. He’s been gone for a few months shy of four years now and I wonder if anyone misses him. Toward the end, I think his house of cards came crashing down all around him. All the people he wronged his entire life, the people whose very lives he shaped by his bad behavior, had turned their backs on him. I think the only person who had a fuck to give about his death was my Aunt Wanda and that was from the familial relationship more than any real connection that some siblings share. There were exactly five “mourners” at his interment service. My Aunt Wanda was there, because it was her brother. I think she had a love-hate relationship with him the same as I did. I was there, more as a show of support for my Aunt Wanda than anything else. My half-sister Rachael Ann was there because I think she still has a lot of unresolved childhood shit leftover from him and thought she might find resolution there – as if. My brother was there, like me, because it was the right thing to do, not because it was what he wanted to do. His son was there as a show of support for his father. The only person there who was really mourning was Wanda. Two of his other offspring didn’t even care enough to come. His other sister didn’t care. His nieces and nephews didn’t care. Former co-workers and colleagues didn’t care. Even the chaplain was almost an hour late. What a sad testimony all of that is to his life.

While March brings me memories and reminders of the bad stuff, for the most part, it comes in like a lamb and goes out the same way.